Why are we so powerless and helpless with ourselves? It seems sometimes as if we were like dogs chasing its own tail. Wanting constantly to be yet better, to fix some things within us, to deal with issues which we think we are capable of fixing, dealing with, solving. Yet most of the time seems to be passing on identifying them and living the change while after some time, it seems from a perspective that we did not fix the thing we wanted to after all but fixed accidentally completely different one and actually profitted on it much more than we would on the original task. We do get better, we see the change and to the better but the process itself is very hard. Very tiring, exhausting and time consuming.

Why am I so helpless with wanting to change things within me. I am not a deviant, not a criminal, don't want to rape anybody, kill anybody, steal from anybody or anything. I am a physically and mentally healthy person, having a regular relationship, physically active in all aspects, having a job I like, having great friends, knowing interesting people, going to movies, theather, going to vacations like everyone else. It is just this god damn childhood which seems to make the whole problem.

Why the fuck a period of one's life which has ended ages ago has such a power that it sort of even manipulates your everyday life? I wasn't raped, sexually molested, beaten, cursed at. Went to school, had friends and relationships, went out to play, had some nice holidays, had a loving family. There were two, minor one could say factors: my parents were divorced very early and my mother had a depression (bipolar disorder) which ended up with her suicide later.

A disturbed relationship with my mother. OK, but why this has to be so substantial and weighty in tis consequences. It feels unfair.

The Dark.

I feel the dark part of me is beginning to take over. The feeling of not being loved, cared about wants to dominate again despite clear facts to the contrary. The power of a learned scheme or behavior is enormous. . . All you can do about it is try to weaken the god damn phenomenon each time it happens. Why does it have to repeat itself? Why by sheer understanding of our own history and by discovery of meaning of various events in our lives we can't get rid of these awful "reaction schemes" that we learned during our lives to defend our psychological systems from what the life used to bring us? Why isn't the knowledge of these mechanics enough to say goodbye to these phenomena? Why simple things just by means of repetition get embedded so deeply in our heads that it is so difficult to un-learn them? You know what it is. It is how the nature made us. It is intended to have positive effect of survival actually. If you observe/come up with a resolutive behavior to a stressful situation you want to repeat it as you see it was helpful with the stresses you've sustained in the past. Then you just repeat it and it becomes a habit to react to the same or (worse) similar situation in a certain way. The way which helped you once.

It though becomes a problem when the original stress along with its original circumstances which originated your specific defensive reaction fade into the past. . . There is no original problem nor original circumstances. You forget that both actually took place in your past. What do you do then when a similar stress comes along in your adult life? Most of us will repeat the defensive reaction to the situation though we are in a totally different circumstances which do not at all require us to apply the same defensive mechanism that we used to apply to the original repeated stressor. It is our smart brain who recognizes in this new stressor an analogy to a well known previous one and begins its run-or-fight routine by an automatic application of a set of reactions which it once learned helped to survive. What do you do then? Let's say you even understand the mechanics... Nothing -you're fucked... You're helpless.

Getting on with life.

Well: I didn't get my dream job, applied too late for my dream rock climbing course in Tatry mountains, the mirror in my camera locked up itself and I still don't have a bike....

Anyway, I need to get on with life. Need to get a bike and apply for a Accelerated Free Flight course - a parachuting course (my other dream). I need to get that camera fixed 'cause I still can't afford to get the dream digital one (like Nikon D80 or even D200). I'll also need to find a vacation substitution for this climbing course. I don't know yet what it would be but I need to find out soon.
Surprisingly I do not feel very down because of the lost job opportunity and this lost climbing course. Maybe it's the age or simply experience. I don't know. Important is that I am happy - I am! And I'm happy that I'm happy. It is a sign that I must be going the right direction. It calms me down a bit. Eases up my analytical thinking and edginess. The first thing about aging that I observed is that at some moment (I guess that only for some people - I'm speaking for myself here) life becomes a kind of a schedule divided into years. It will of go how and where you "schedule" it. If you plan this and that this year, you'll most probably do it. If you can't then you might wanna have a backup plan for such instances - something that you want to do equally eagerly. If you don't have a plan your year it simply drips through your fingers and it might be happening year after year if you don't notice soon enough. But I think that such kind of planning requires you to be prepared in terms of knowing what you want, what can be resigned from in favor of something else which is more achievable but achievable. You first need to learn to choose in agreement with what is really important for you. Sometimes it might be a category of things and not necessarily specific, concrete things. This allows for choice and preference. If you'd never think about things you want and never think deeper into things that you want and are important to you, you would not have anything to choose from. So if you'd have just only one thing that you want to do this year there is a risk that if you don't achieve it you'd feel very bad about yourself.

Always have alternatives. Have various hobbies and interests. It helps to live a happier life.

Back Down to Earth (Prose of life)

I just missed a great job offer. Thought I was the one for this one. Turned out I wasn't. It came as a total surprise to me. Went through a depression-like period - I must admit. Had a deep drop in motivation towards my current job. Thinking that this might come out as good for me kept me in one piece. Funny how a child in me came out suddenly. Wanted a toy but didn't get it.

Well, this is what life is partly about. A struggle. Kind of survival. But again it seems as the greatest enemy is the one within a man, not anything outside. It is all about how we interpret what comes by. This was the time when I interpreted an occurrence as another proof that I made many mistakes in my life. You know one of these times when you say to yourself: "Didn' I tell you?!". I think if I wasn't that much of an egoist I would simply wait humbly for another opportunity not necessarily thinking that such an event describes me in any way. But I do think so, and it hurts me. When will I finally grow up to just accept how we are in life and how we are connected to other people in this life, what are the rules of life and the rest of this. I am afraid that in my case this might come only sometime after I retire and then I will have the every right to resent me being too egocentric throughout most of my life.

How do we stop to be egoists? I mean really stop, not pretend we aren't in front of others and ourselves? Anyone keen to advise?